Detroit Reassures Aussie Car Fans: The Holdens Will Keep Rolling

Some interesting news has cropped up out of Detroit relating to the future of General Motors’ operations Down Under.

A top executive at the car company has said that workers have saved their jobs by agreeing to swallow any wage slave’s bitter pill: a pay freeze. And even the unions there supported the move, although it was a better deal than the $180 per week pay cut GM had originally proposed.

DETROIT–General Motors Co. (GM) is committed to keeping its Australian operations open after workers there agreed to a wage freeze allowing the company to better compete, a top executive said Thursday.

“We work with those unions effectively to have a viable manufacturing base,” GM vice president of North America Mark Reuss said. “That is what we have done for a long time and I don’t see that changing.”

The comment comes just a day after hundreds of GM workers in South Australia voted to accept a three-year wage freeze as part of an agreement to keep the company from closing a plant outside the state capital of Adelaide.

GM operates in Australia under the Holden brand, which along with Toyota will be the only companies building cars there from 2016. The Australian dollar, which was above parity with the U.S. dollar earlier this year, has made it tough for car companies there.

The Australian election due Sept. 7 could decide whether more manufacturing jobs will be heading to U.S. factories. If the center-right Liberal party wins, as the polls are suggesting it will, it has vowed to rip A$500 million ($457 million) in government support from the industry at a time when GM is putting its hand out for more cash to pay for upgrades to ensure its long-term future there.